和rea Ewing Reid ’80: Physician, Educator, Dean, and Advocate

上周五, as the Career Day Keynote Speaker for Foxcroft’s Virtual 团聚, 安德里亚走在全神贯注的学生面前, 女校友, and faculty through her amazing journey from an eight-year-old hopeful doctor to a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General), 然后是华盛顿的退伍军人医疗中心, DC, and finally to her current professional homes as Director of Diversity and 教师 Development, MGH Gastroenterology at Mass General and Associate Dean for Student and Multicultural Affairs; Director of the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs at Harvard Medical School.

在99499威尼斯信誉, 我去过的第一个地方是哪一个, 除了我的家人, 在哪里聪明是件好事,” 和rea attended Brown University to study psychology. 虽然, she joined and then led the Black Premedical Society, noting that their work in the community and the inspirational stories she heard from individuals who were underrepresented in medicine were an important part of her life.

Upon receiving her degree with honors from Brown University, 安德里亚被哈佛医学院录取, 她生命中的另一个关键时刻, 但她差点没利用这个机会.

“I almost didn't go because I didn't like Boston,” she explains. “我不喜欢波士顿代表的东西. You have to remember this was in 1984; Harvard Medical School hadn't been diversified for very long. 医学界仍以男性为主, and Boston was known as a very difficult city for people of color who had gone through a tumultuous time in the late 1970s around busing and discrimination in the school system, 我从没想过要来波士顿, but I decided to come because of Harvard Medical School.” 

在哈佛大学, 和rea did her residency and gastrointestinal training at Mass General, as one of very few women and even fewer women of color, “We began to push for equity really against a void. There were no minority faculty on staff that were teaching us, 其他少数民族居民寥寥无几, and we could see that there was different treatment for some of the minority patients.” 

当她完成训练时, 她被要求留在教员岗位上, which solidified her interest in medical education and accreditation. “So I was pushing for change, but I was also changing myself,” she explained. “I was the first black individual to train in internal medicine and GI [gastrointestinal] training — or any training —  and stay on faculty. 所以当我留在教职的时候, 谈论独处, there were very few people who looked like me or shared my perspective. 但是慢慢地, as we began to galvanize with the leadership and talk about ways to diversify, 事情开始发生变化.”  

During this time, 和rea received her master’s in public health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and became associate director of the Multicultural Affairs Office at Mass General, eventually moving from there to the VA Medical Center in Washington, DC, and ultimately back to Boston where she serves in her current dual roles with Harvard and Mass General. 

她的演讲结束了, 安德里亚分享了这些离别的想法, “终于, 最后我想说的是, 你知道, it has been an interesting journey to go from being one of the few to be willing to break through some of the barriers of Harvard Medical School and Mass General Hospital, but also to now be in a position to influence some of those same systems that have kept these numbers very, very low and to think about them in much broader ways than thinking about myself.” 

She ended with this poignant quote from James Baldwin, 她最喜欢的作家之一, “不是所有面对的事情都可以改变, 但在面对之前，什么也改变不了.” 和rea is not one to shy away from the hard and important work of changing systems not just for herself, 但对于那些后来的人来说. She has been and continues to use her voice for good in medicine and medical training, and we are grateful that she shared her inspiring story with us.

和rea’s talk kicked off an afternoon full of stimulating sessions for students conducted by 女校友 who graciously gave their time to share personal stories about their professional paths during eight different breakout sessions. 这些女性, 代表1980年至2016年的班级, 他们来自各行各业, including a senior manager of communications and public relations at Yelp, 雪佛龙公司的电气工程师, 霍利斯99499威尼斯信誉的高级设计副总裁, 有执照的助产士, 和更多的. 学生们参加了两次会议, no doubt learned a lot about the myriad possibilities for life after Foxcroft. 
 
Many thanks to the remarkable women who gave their time and to the Office of Institutional Advancement, 尤其是凯瑟琳·墨菲, 用于组织活动.